Salad Days

Can't wait for the email from The Sun's finance department asking me why I went to the grocery store every day for three weeks. No big mystery there. I've turned over a new leaf - literally - and open each day here at spring training by picking up a bag of fresh lettuce for my lunch. Never have been one for rabbit food, but I'm studying for my upcoming physical and need to drop a few pounds before I get back to Baltimore in early March. So far, so good. I'm not the only one who is trying to get healthier this spring.

Can't wait for the email from The Sun's finance department asking me why I went to the grocery store every day for three weeks. No big mystery there. I've turned over a new leaf - literally - and open each day here at spring training by picking up a bag of fresh lettuce for my lunch. Never have been one for rabbit food, but I'm studying for my upcoming physical and need to drop a few pounds before I get back to Baltimore in early March. So far, so good. I'm not the only one who is trying to get healthier this spring.

Paul Newman thought it should be eaten with a spoon. Baltimore restaurant owner Sascha Wolhandler calls it "a fabulous amalgam of flavor in every bite. " It's the chopped salad, and it's having a field day in Baltimore. A chopped salad featured on the summer restaurant week menu at Heavy Seas Alehouse proved so popular that it's been put on the permanent dinner menu. Sergio Vitale, co-owner of Chazz: A Bronx Original, is considering making the lunch menu's steakhouse salad a dinner item, too. "It's definitely the No. 1 most popular lunch item and people ask for at dinner, too," Vitale said about the salad, which he says is an homage to a version served at Ruth's Chris Steak House.

Paul Newman thought it should be eaten with a spoon. Baltimore restaurant owner Sascha Wolhandler calls it "a fabulous amalgam of flavor in every bite. " It's the chopped salad, and it's having a field day in Baltimore. A chopped salad featured on the summer restaurant week menu at Heavy Seas Alehouse proved so popular that it's been put on the permanent dinner menu. Sergio Vitale, co-owner of Chazz: A Bronx Original, is considering making the lunch menu's steakhouse salad a dinner item, too. "It's definitely the No. 1 most popular lunch item and people ask for at dinner, too," Vitale said about the salad, which he says is an homage to a version served at Ruth's Chris Steak House.

AN OCCASIONAL jokester wonders if anyone has had a sighting of Howard County Executive James N. Robey. Not to worry. Mr. Robey is alive and well and riding the nearly perfect economic wave. He can most often be seen, agreeably enough for any public figure, when he has good news. With plenty of money on hand and the ability to keep borrowing costs within bounds, Mr. Robey has unveiled a capital budget that is twice as big at $200 million as last year's, his first building plan. Almost everyone got almost everything on their wish lists.

What with the price of lettuce being out of sight as of late, perhaps it is best to look at some other salad combinations this summer. Without resorting to gelatin molds, there are some creative alternatives in two cookbooks written by authors not immediately identified with greens."

Said it before, say it again: It's a great country, and one of its beauties is freedom of expression, freer now than ever before, and another is a general amiability that you find everywhere, the helpfulness of strangers, the pleasure of small talk. Of course it's spring and the air is brisk, and this makes for public happiness. And I've just come from Nashville and Seattle, two mightily congenial cities. The young and restless stroll the downtown honky-tonks and a sweet breeze blows, laden with flowers, and it is darned near idyllic.

By Kathleen Purvis and Kathleen Purvis,KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE | June 7, 2000

In this part of the country, our salad days -- our heyday, our days of youthful exuberance -- are in the spring, before summer heat turns arugula peppery and crisphead lettuces bolt and go to seed. Whether you sowed a row of lettuce seed when the ground was still cool, or buy a bag of mixed greens at a farm stand, or graze through the green bundles under the sprinkler in your supermarket, salad greens should be bright and fresh. Look for lettuces that are crisp and free of tears and browning leaves.

MORE THAN MEMORial Day, or even the last day of school, my mother's first potato salad signaled the official start of summer. A family favorite, it went with just about everything. Barbecue ribs, fried chicken, hot dogs, hamburgers -- anything that can be cooked on a grill or served on a bed of lettuce. But what potato salad means to me may be very different than what it means to you. There is no single recipe for potato salad. It varies from region to region, family to family, and even among members of the same family.

THERE ARE TIMES when we aren't in top form, when the flesh is weak. That is the situation with garden tomatoes. Their bodies aren't as luscious as they once were, but they still have some appeal. The other day, for instance, after rounding up what was probably the last of the garden tomatoes, I looked them over. They were not an impressive lot. They had sagging spots and patches of bad skin, and their posture was droopy. Nonetheless, they had something to offer. The flavor of a garden-grown tomato, even a sorry-looking one, is a league above the store-bought types.

Said it before, say it again: It's a great country, and one of its beauties is freedom of expression, freer now than ever before, and another is a general amiability that you find everywhere, the helpfulness of strangers, the pleasure of small talk. Of course it's spring and the air is brisk, and this makes for public happiness. And I've just come from Nashville and Seattle, two mightily congenial cities. The young and restless stroll the downtown honky-tonks and a sweet breeze blows, laden with flowers, and it is darned near idyllic.

MORE THAN MEMORial Day, or even the last day of school, my mother's first potato salad signaled the official start of summer. A family favorite, it went with just about everything. Barbecue ribs, fried chicken, hot dogs, hamburgers -- anything that can be cooked on a grill or served on a bed of lettuce. But what potato salad means to me may be very different than what it means to you. There is no single recipe for potato salad. It varies from region to region, family to family, and even among members of the same family.

A good waitress can make all the difference in a meal. A great waitress can bring customers back to a restaurant time and again. A few waitresses transcend ordinary greatness and become something close to legends. Claudia Coffey was one. She died last year in a Baltimore County nursing home. But she lives on in an item that still appears on some menus around town - Coffey salad. "Miss Coffey," as everyone called her, came to the Pimlico Restaurant from the old Horn & Horn across from the Gaiety Theatre downtown.

THERE ARE TIMES when we aren't in top form, when the flesh is weak. That is the situation with garden tomatoes. Their bodies aren't as luscious as they once were, but they still have some appeal. The other day, for instance, after rounding up what was probably the last of the garden tomatoes, I looked them over. They were not an impressive lot. They had sagging spots and patches of bad skin, and their posture was droopy. Nonetheless, they had something to offer. The flavor of a garden-grown tomato, even a sorry-looking one, is a league above the store-bought types.

EVEN IN THE flush of a long-running economic boom, many Americans still expect to read the word "deficit" after "federal budget." But surplus it is and -- at an estimated $1.9 trillion over the next 10 years -- almost double the sum projected by President Clinton just four months ago. That figure would be a staggering $4.2 trillion if Social Security funds were included, as they were before the money began to flow so freely. At a such a breathtaking moment, national political leaders need special discipline to avoid both locked-in spending and premature tax cutting.

By Kathleen Purvis and Kathleen Purvis,KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE | June 7, 2000

In this part of the country, our salad days -- our heyday, our days of youthful exuberance -- are in the spring, before summer heat turns arugula peppery and crisphead lettuces bolt and go to seed. Whether you sowed a row of lettuce seed when the ground was still cool, or buy a bag of mixed greens at a farm stand, or graze through the green bundles under the sprinkler in your supermarket, salad greens should be bright and fresh. Look for lettuces that are crisp and free of tears and browning leaves.

People . . . People who need forks are the yuckiest people in the world.OK, so Barbra Streisand didn't exactly sing those lyrics during her recent concerts at the USAir Arena in Landover. She might as well have.The culinary word on America's Funny Girl is that she eats salad sans utensils, drinks only American bottled water and avoids green peppers because of a food allergy.Other than that, Ms. Streisand has been a poster girl for the Food Pyramid in recent days, eating lots of vegetables, fresh fruit and fish.

By J.D. Considine and J.D. Considine,Sun Pop Music Critic | October 14, 1999

If there's one thing Mike Watt knows, it's the road. "The way a tour is, it always sucks all [other] events in, like a vortex," he says over the phone from his home in San Pedro, Calif. "This will be my 29th tour," he says. "No, my 30th tour. So I kinda know the drill. But it's always scary." Scary, but fun. Over the years, Watt has toured as the bassist for a number of groups. First, there was the daring, funk-informed punk band the Minutemen, which he helped found in 1979. Then, after the death of guitarist D. Boone in an auto accident in 1985, he formed fIREHOSE, which pretty much picked up where the Minutemen left off. Watt disbanded fIREHOSE in 1994 and went solo, releasing the rangy, ambitious solo album, "Ball-Hog or Tugboat?"

AN OCCASIONAL jokester wonders if anyone has had a sighting of Howard County Executive James N. Robey. Not to worry. Mr. Robey is alive and well and riding the nearly perfect economic wave. He can most often be seen, agreeably enough for any public figure, when he has good news. With plenty of money on hand and the ability to keep borrowing costs within bounds, Mr. Robey has unveiled a capital budget that is twice as big at $200 million as last year's, his first building plan. Almost everyone got almost everything on their wish lists.